Notes: Richmond’s opening one-line statement summarizes his body of work; “Places, like people, can seem alone, filled with melancholy”. As an English photographer, he investigates a version of the American West that is found in Montana, Utah, Wyoming, South Dakota and Colorado, perhaps chasing movie myths while facing current realities. His photographs indeed appear to be layered with melancholy; open spaces devoid of people while sparsely populated by cattle, abandoned dusty western streets, boarded up small town store-fronts, old beat-up cars and empty bars. He has found those lonely in-between places where the American West dream has seemed to fizzle and become something much less. I am left wondering about his subjects; the faceless cowboys, the old biker, the young boy and others captured in a pensive moment.

Richmond’s photographs are well made and have an objective, documentary appearance that capture the nuances of the wide open expanses in Big Sky country. As his book title implies, and his photographs tend to support, the American West is still a large, sparse and desolate space where someone can escape to and become lost, leaving all one’s past baggage behind.